The Lady In The Lake

New York: Knopf, 1943. First Edition. Bound in emerald green morocco leather with gilt-tooled and decoratively stamped spine, ruled and gilt-tooled covers, with gilt-decorated edges. A very handsome example of Raymond Chandler’s classic mystery. The basis of the classic 1947 MGM film starring Robert Montgomery as Philip Marlowe. Jacques Barzun & Wendell Hertig Taylor in their classic work, A Catalogue of Crime, go even further, remarking that The Lady In the Lake is a “superb tale” which “moves through a maze of puzzles and disclosures to its perfect conclusion. Marlowe makes a greater use of physical clues and ratiocination in this exploit that in any other. It is Chandler’s masterpiece and true detection.”